The Movie:
“Dune” finally gets the Blu-ray treatment. Unfortunately, “Dune” fans probably aren’t going to be that happy with it. Rather than having the extended version, this only has the theatrical version which is 40 minutes shorter. It’s quite obvious they’re planning for some special edition Blu-ray sometime in the future. The picture has some technical problems, too. I typically don’t notice problems in picture or sound quality, but even I could see specks and scratches in the image. They’re most notable in the desert scenes. So it’s quite apparent this movie needs to be restored.

“Dune” fans will also be unhappy that there are no new bonus features. These are the same ones from the recently released extended edition DVD. If you’re looking for more, you’re out of luck. Theres no commentary and none of the actors contribute to any of the featurettes. However, what remains is decent. A few deleted scenes are introduced by Raffaella De Laurentiis who explains that there was never a 4 hour cut of the film, but they had intended to do a 6 hour version. This is followed by a few deleted scenes. One shows Paul crying for a man he has killed. Another scene shows Kyle MacLachlan as Paul offering himself as a sacrifice to the family’s traitorous assistant. This is followed by him taking on Virginia Madsen who plays Princess Irulan as his wife. The other deleted scenes are less noteworthy. The rest of the extras are featurettes discussing the design of the film, the special effects, the models and miniatures, and the wardrobe. The original artists and crew are interviewed for these pieces. It’s very interesting and you begin to really appreciate the design work that went into the film. It’s a shame it all had to get bogged down by a bad script.

Unfortunately, this Blu-ray is not the definitive edition of the film. If you’re a “Dune” fan, the Extended Edition DVD is still the version to go with. If you’re not a “Dune” fan, then I still think the SCI FI Channel mini-series is a better adaptation of the novel. It’s a lot less weird and convoluted.